The Earlybird: Today's headlines

Jeffords' independence, Bush's charitable travels, Olson's confirmation, Greenspan's preview, Davis' poll numbers, Warner's challenge, D.C.'s continued intern search:

• Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, formerly a Republican and now an independent, said Thursday that he left the GOP because "he no longer felt at home in the party he has loved all his life," the Burlington Free Press reports. AP has the text of Jeffords' announcement.
• Jeffords, who "upset the balance of power" in the Senate by leaving the GOP, said he told President Bush that "unless he charted a more moderate course he would be defeated after his first term," the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus reports.
• An overnight poll taken in Vermont showed "two-thirds of Vermonters still had a favorable opinion of Jeffords," the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus reports.
• "Democrats rejoiced Thursday at their imminent takeover of the Senate and pledged to be bipartisan, while Republicans vowed to stick to their agenda and warned that it can be hard to lead in a closely divided body," the Dallas Morning News reports.
• Democrats are planning an agenda that includes "immediate work on a patients' bill of rights, prescription drug plan for the elderly and an energy policy that focuses on conservation," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• National Journal reports on the Democrats who are expected to take over committee chairmanships, including Jeffords for the Environment And Public Works Committee, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., for the Appropriations Committee and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., for the Governmental Affairs Committee.

• Bush visited a soup kitchen at St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Cleveland Thursday for an "orchestrated event" that "was emblematic of the partnership Bush is trying to build between the government and faith-based organizations," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
• About "200 anti-Bush protesters -- mainly union members -- chanted 'Jobs, not charity' and 'Come into our union town, you must be a clown' outside the soup kitchen during Bush's visit, AP reports.
• Bush also visited a school for the disabled in Tremont, Ohio, where he told a group of 300 people in the school's auditorium that "he wants to make a half-billion dollars available" for charitable choice programs "and establish a private organization to promote legislation and lobby corporations to contribute more to faith-based charities," the Columbus Dispatch reports.
• Today Bush will speak to graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, AP reports.

• The Senate confirmed Theodore Olson as solicitor general Thursday "by a narrow 51-47 vote," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• House and Senate negotiators worked late into the night Thursday on a compromise version of the tax cut bill, which could "be the last significant piece of tax legislation this year," the Washington Post reports. "The meeting broke up at midnight, and negotiators said they would meet again this morning. House and Senate leaders told lawmakers to prepare for a vote on a final deal late this afternoon."

• Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan "said Thursday night that the current period of slow growth has not yet ended," AP reports. The Federal Reserve Board Web site has the text of Greenspan's speech to the Economic Club of New York.
• Greenspan also said that though additional interest rate cuts might still be needed, "the central bank's interest rate cuts this year are having their intended effect on the faltering economy," the New York Times reports.
• "Reaction to Greenspan's remarks was mixed," CNNfn.com reports. "Stocks fell in Europe and Asia while futures contracts pointed to a mixed start in the United States, where trading could be light ahead of the long Memorial Day holiday weekend."

• "Around 30 people have been killed, and at least 50 are missing, after a hall collapsed onto a wedding party in Jerusalem" on Thursday, CNN.com reports. "Rescue workers searched for survivors and removed bodies from the remains of the building through the night and into Friday." Authorities said the collapse was due to structural problems with the building.
• "Despite international efforts for a truce, Palestinian militants lobbed mortars at a Jewish settlement yesterday and Israeli tanks rumbled into Palestinian territory, firing shells and machine guns," AP reports.

• The Pentagon on Thursday "denied reports from Beijing that a deal has been reached on the return of the crippled U.S. Navy spy plane from the Chinese island of Hainan," CNN.com reports.
• "The State Department has reached an agreement to supply $3 million in logistical support to a Sudanese opposition alliance," the Washington Post reports.
• "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday he was not close to finishing his sweeping review of the U.S. military and no recommendations on weapons programs would be ready until late in the year," Reuters reports.
• The International Labor Organization will release a report today saying that "slavery and other insidious types of forced labor are increasing worldwide," USA Today reports.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday "that federal officials have given Timothy McVeigh's lawyers all previously missing documents in the Oklahoma City bombing case" and that "he will not further postpone McVeigh's June 11 execution," AP reports.
• "Nineteen black Secret Service agents yesterday joined with 38 others in a pending class-action lawsuit accusing the agency of discrimination and of maintaining a 'racially hostile work environment,'" the Washington Times reports.

• "An Interior Department advisory committee has urged the Bush administration to begin a process that could reopen the debate over the moratoria on offshore drilling for natural gas," the Boston Globe reports.
• "Democrats have released another wave of ads -- this time on radio -- attacking President Bush and the Republicans for their handling of the nation's energy problems," AP reports.
• The price of gasoline could reach $2 per gallon this summer, AP reports.
• A new natural gas-fired electricity plant being built in Arizona "is the largest of its kind in North America," the Arizona Republic reports.
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "ordered state officials Thursday to enact a three-tier blackout warning system," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• A new poll in California shows that Gov. Davis "has suffered a precipitous fall in his job approval rating and image among state residents," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Davis "would not be re-elected if voters were given a choice today, the poll showed."
• Virginia gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner (D) "called on his Republican opponents yesterday to agree not to engage in negative advertising" and to support a "proposal in which the candidates' picture would appear in any campaign advertisement," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. "Attorney General Mark L. Earley, the front-runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, declined both offers."
• Earley's GOP opponent, Lt. Gov. John Hager, criticized Early and Warner yesterday, saying they both "lack the managerial know-how to oversee a far-flung enterprise such as Virginia government," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
• Former Arizona state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez (D) said Wednesday "that he's running for governor, though he won't make it official until August," the Arizona Republic reports. Also, former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, "a popular political maverick in the GOP, announced he's out of the running."
• Former California state Senator Diane Watson (D) "continues to decline" debates with her opponents in the upcoming special election in California's 32nd District. On Wednesday, the other candidates -- Republican Noel Irwin Hentschel, Reform candidate Ezola Foster and Green candidate Donna Warren -- "met to compare views" and "found Watson's chair empty," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• "The Washington Police Department assigned 30 officers and trainees to search every nook and cranny of the Adams Morgan neighborhood where" Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., lives as the search continues for missing intern Chandra Levy, the New York Post reports.
• York, Pa., Mayor Charlie Robertson (D) "is quitting his campaign for a third term as he deals with a murder charge stemming from the shooting of a young black woman in the city's 1969 race riots," AP reports.
• "A 15-year-old Sherpa boy" -- Temba Tsheri -- "has become the youngest person to scale Mount Everest," Star-Ledger Wire Services reports.